


all of me

by magnetgirl



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F, Fanmix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-28
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-09-27 13:55:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10023731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnetgirl/pseuds/magnetgirl
Summary: retelling of Emma and Lily's early relationship in a college setting





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hbics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hbics/gifts).



 

[Independent Women Part 1](https://open.spotify.com/track/69XUpOpjzDKcfdxqZebGiI); Destiny’s Child  
[Landslide](https://open.spotify.com/track/65nCVhtlWYUzNvcM1MYp4l); Dixie Chicks  
[I’m Like A Bird](https://open.spotify.com/track/2tP7ZekzXfduShx8C6cbll); Nelly Furtado  
[God is a DJ](https://open.spotify.com/track/528upPM5D1jiSGMoS7z1Pd); Pink  
[Breathe](https://open.spotify.com/track/3y4LxiYMgDl4RethdzpmNe); Faith Hill  
[Complicated](https://open.spotify.com/track/5xEM5hIgJ1jjgcEBfpkt2F); Avril Lavigne  
[White Houses](https://open.spotify.com/track/5QtU1pZqDlbUxIIeGTtlpl); Vanessa Carlton  
[My Immortal](https://open.spotify.com/track/4UzVcXufOhGUwF56HT7b8M); Evanescence  
[Breakaway](https://open.spotify.com/track/61Qhe2mHSLhUE04QeK4lkD); Kelly Clarkson  
[Everytime](https://open.spotify.com/track/0dRhSF9LV0HR8Jwd3MMMKJ); Britney Spears  
[White Flag](https://open.spotify.com/track/4kbz7rHVbyjKasuuqelccQ); Dido  
[Unwritten](https://open.spotify.com/track/1D1nixOVWOxvNfWi0UD7VX); Natasha Bedingfield

Emma arrived at college with a need to prove herself. No one expected her to get there. Emma was a misfit, in and out of foster placements and group homes her whole life. She didn’t belong in college because she didn’t belong anywhere. When she was little she’d dream of another life, where she was a princess in a castle, with a family and a whole kingdom to love her. When she was older she dreamed of a life on the run, no boundaries, no rules. But that’s the life she was expected to live. On the streets or in jail or unwed and pregnant or all of the above probably. Emma decided she wanted something else.

Lily arrived at college with about twenty years worth of emotional baggage. Which was impressive seeing as she was only eighteen years old. She was the kind of girl who took a train from the suburbs to sit on the city sidewalk for eight hours pretending to be a street rat because it felt more real than her big house and rich parents and all the expectations that come with the trappings. Everybody said she had so much potential but all she heard was disappointment. No matter what she said no one understood. No matter what she did nothing changed. College was what she was supposed to do, and her team of parents, teachers, and therapists did what they had to to get her there. But Lily wanted something else.

“Textbooks are a racket.”

Emma glanced up from her careful calculations -- just first semester’s books were going to deplete the money she made over the summer -- to see who’d spoken. The girl was wearing a slip dress over jeans, large black boots, and eyeliner so thick Emma couldn’t tell if she wanted to look like she’d been in a fight or was covering up that she actually had. She also had at least eight brightly colored butterfly clips in her dark hair, and every single one screamed ‘trying too hard’.

“What?”

“Don’t waste your money. Just nip one from a legacy. They can afford to get another.” Emma blinked. Was she really suggesting…? The girl flashed a smile-- and a gold Mastercard. “Or better yet, take their card. What do you need?”

“I -- what?” The girl sighed dramatically and snatched the schedule out of Emma’s hand. She started dropping books into a basket. “Hey, you can’t, give that back -- what are you doing?” Emma hissed.

“I’m solving your problem.”

“I don’t--” The girl shot Emma a look. “...I don’t need charity.”

“It’s not,” the girl replied, dropping the list on top of the stack of books, and moving on to notebooks and other supplies. “I’m redistributing wealth appropriately. The brat I got this from doesn’t pay the bill and Mom and Dad won’t even notice. Trust.” She knocked a stuffed bear wearing the school’s logo on top of the pile and walked over to the checkout. Emma stared. She should probably leave. She should definitely leave. But instead she found herself following the girl outside.

“Here.” Emma took the proffered bags, stuffed full of everything she’d need for class. The girl uncapped a pen and wrote something on one of the notebooks. “Call me if you need anything else.” And with that she turned to walk away.

“Wait!” The girl peered back at Emma over her shoulder, in the sunlight the hairclips blurred together into something like a crown. “Who _are_ you?”

The girl pointed to the notebook, Emma looked down to read it as she answered. “Lily.”

Emma looked back up to meet her eyes. “I’m Emma.”

“Hi, Emma,” Lily smiled as she turned around and raised the credit card one more time. “Wanna get dinner?”

They were drawn together like magnets. A sudden, inescapable, mutual attraction.

Emma was the better student. She knew how to buckle down and do the work. She had goals. She didn’t know who she wanted to be, but she knew she wanted to be someone. Lily found all the best parties. She was terrible at endings but had a real talent for introductions. They made a good team that way. Lily could talk them into anywhere, and Emma could get them out of anything.

The first time they kissed it was just the natural extension of their friendship. But when they pulled apart Emma saw something in Lily’s eyes she’d never seen before, and barely since. Lily didn’t have walls the way Emma did -- no one had walls the way Emma did. She was Rapunzel in a tower she built herself and surrounded by a garden of thorns. Lily was open, welcoming, barreling even. But it was all a mirage. Lily lied so well she believed it herself.

“All this time. . . _every time_ we hid from the crowds --  I thought you understood. I thought you were the same.”

“I am Emma! I do!”

“Shut up!” Emma roared at her friend -- her _best friend_ \-- her _girlfriend_ \-- her -- “You don’t! You can’t! You have a family! _You have a family!_ ”

She’d lost count of how many family days and parents weekends and other events they’d avoided together. Growing up she’d had to suffer through well-meaning adults forcing her to attend with them, but here she was able to skip out entirely. She would always pick ignore over pretend and she thought Lily was the same. But Lily was pretending the whole time.

“I’m adopted. They’re not my real family -- if they were, they would have come a hundred times before today. I don’t fit in there, I never have!” Tears streamed down her face. “Please, Emma, you’re the only one who ever understood what it’s like to be me.”

“You tricked me.” Lily reached a hand out, tried to touch Emma’s shoulder but she jerked away. “You _used me_.”

Lily shook her head furiously. “Emma, please --”

“I can’t, Lily.” Emma clutched her arms to her chest. Everything hurt. “I can’t -- I can’t do this now.”

“Emma--”

“ _I can’t_.”

Lily’s face crumbled. “Please,” she whispered. “I don’t know who I am without you.”

Emma squared her shoulders, eyes hard to hide the hurt. “I don’t know who you are at all.”

Emma threw herself into her studies. She’d let Lily distract her, let her guard down, and that hurt almost as much as the betrayal. She replaced her walls, regrew her thorns, and turned all her attention to herself. To becoming the warrior she knew she was meant to be.

Lily disappeared. Without Emma to push her, she stopped going to classes. She tried to lose herself in parties, people, potions, but nothing worked. She walked to the bus station, bought a ticket on the next one leaving and boarded without checking the destination.

***  


“Call for you.” Graham peered over to Emma’s desk -- cluttered as always with papers, folders, a dying plant and at least four coffee cups, and Emma face down in the middle of it after a long day. He crumpled a paper and threw it at her head.

“Hmm?”

“Call for you,” he repeated, the handle of the phone swaying in his hand. She frowned, exhausted, but she was still here, and in her line of work, emergencies happen. She picked up her receiver and nodded for him to transfer the call.

“Hello?” she spoke, groggy, but present, into the phone.

“Emma?”

Her eyes shot open wide. She hadn’t heard the voice in years, but she’d know it anywhere. Every time she almost made a real friend, or considered keeping a date around past the physical, she heard it whisper in her head.

“Emma? Are you there?”

She wanted to hang up. She wanted to banish, to bury, the memories, the feelings, all of it. But she was frozen. What might it feel like to not be alone?

“Yes,” she answered. “I’m here.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> My headcanon is that without magical world interference Emma would become a child advocate, and Lily would be some kind of starving artist. 
> 
> Track notes:
> 
> All of the songs included were released and popular while Emma and Lily were college aged, 2001-2005. 
> 
> 1\. Emma  
> 2\. Emma  
> 3\. Lily  
> 4\. Lily  
> 5\. Emma/Lily  
> 6\. Emma/Lily  
> 7\. Emma/Lily  
> 8\. Emma/Lily  
> 9\. Emma  
> 10\. Lily  
> 11\. Lily  
> 12\. Emma


End file.
